Big mean ol’ Unka Bredesen is taking money from widows and orphans! Or so the TNGOP would have me believe.
That’s what happened recently in Johnson City where the House of Prayer, a small nondenominational church on Milligan Highway that regularly holds yard sales in its parking lot to raise money to help poor people with their expenses, got a visit and a letter from Tennessee Department of Revenue saying the church broke the law by not collecting sales tax. The church’s tax bill: around $30.
I have to say that this is one of those arguments where I’m not really able to fully root for one side over the other. Is the State of Tennessee a bloated government with a gaping suckmaw of payroll and frivolous spending on ballrooms? Yessir, ’tis. Is the church just trying to raise some scratch to feed hungry folks? Yessir, ’tis.
But the church, by the TNGOP’s OWN ADMISSION broke the law.
Sure, it’s a stupid law. But last time I checked, the GOP was all down with everyone obeying stupid laws–especially if they’re stupid laws about who legally lives where. Right? RIGHT?!?!?
[...] Katherine Coble thinks it’s messed up that a church has to pay sales taxes on profits from a yard sale but doesn’t understand why the TNGOP is failing to stand up for the state’s insistence on adherence to the law: But the church, by the TNGOP’s OWN ADMISSION broke the law. [...]
Read our release carefully. We do not say the church shouldn’t follow the law. We say the government needs to be reformed to not need so much money that it has to tax church charity yard sales:
“A government that can’t live without $30 in tax revenue from the sale of some old clothes and toys at a church yard sale is a government that has grown too big, too expensive too fast,” said Robin Smith, Chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. “It’s not enough to CHANGE THE LAW so that churches don’t have to collect sales taxes at charitable yard sales.
“We have to change the Tennessee legislature to a Republican majority that is focused on reducing the size and cost of government, so that the government doesn’t need the House of Prayer’s $30.”
Hmm, I am no expert on tax law and I certainly know nothing about this case, but I thought churches were tax-exempt? And if the yard sale was raising money for a church mission, which it appears from your excerpt it was, how can it be the law that they would have to pay tax?
I’m confused.
Even if the gov’t needs only $30 ever, why should that yard sale be exempt from contributing the share it’s legally required to contribute? Because (you assume) it’s doing good things? What about all the immigrants who are here doing good things? The GOP is happy to point to the single law they have broken in order to define them — I do hope the party will now start referring to churches that don’t pay sales tax as “illegal churches.”
SB, churches are exempt from property and income taxes, and they may make purchases without paying sales tax. But the people making purchases from them are not tax exempt, and it is the seller’s (in this case, the church’s) responsibility to collect that sales tax from purchasers and deliver it to the state.
Read our release carefully.
I did read it carefully. About 50 times.
We do not say the church shouldn’t follow the law.
That is true. You don’t. You say the law shouldn’t exist, and imply that the law is stupid. You then imply that the day should come, and that right soon, when churches won’t have to pay sales tax.
“We have to change the Tennessee legislature to a Republican majority that is focused on reducing the size and cost of government, so that the government doesn’t need the House of Prayer’s $30.”
It was NEVER EVER “the House of Prayer’s” $30″. It was first the money of the people who patronised the yard sale. Then it was the money of either the poor who were going to be fed by the yard sale proceeds OR the government who had by law a rightful claim to said $30. At no point in the chain of command did that $30 ever even theoretically belong to the church.
Of course I’m not even getting into the fact that no Christian church should ever engage in the act of buying and selling on its property. We saw how mad it made Jesus ONCE, why bother doing it again? Even for “charity”.
Yard sales for charity equal money changers in the temple?
Kat, get off your high horse.
Or you could get off yours.
See, the thing is, the original “money changers” were guys who were selling doves for religious observances. Jesus made it clear that a place of worship was A HOUSE OF PRAYER (Matthew 21:13). It was not a place for commerce, regardless of what the commerce was for–doves for sacrifice or dollars for widows.
For what it’s worth, I’m far from alone in believing that there should be no buying and selling on church grounds. That’s an ongoing subject of debate within the church, my position on which is clear.
Kat, that’s interesting. How do you reconcile that view with the conversation Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at the well?
Didn’t Jesus fulfill the law? Isn’t that why we no longer make animal sacrifices?
Also, the significance of the veil of the Temple being ripped, for me, is that buildings are, after the mighty work of Jesus, just that – and the Holy Temple is now in the heart of every man. Paul seemed to be saying as much in his writings as well.
Plus, there’s a huge difference between “pay us or you cannot worship”, and “help us help the poor”. Not distinguishing between the two is quite a yoke to put on believers.
The church wasn’t taxed on the stuff it received to sell. The people who buy the stuff are taxed. There’s a difference there.
It seems mere religious legalism to imply that church volunteers working a charity yardsale netting approximately $500 to $600 bucks are in any way comparable to “the den of theives” as Christ called the money changers.
Such legalism was the calling of the Pharisees.
The conversation with the Samaritan woman (John 4:5-26) and the rending of the veil are one thing. They are talking about the free access to the divine we all are granted by Christ’s atonement.
But as long as there are church buildings set apart for worship, then those buildings are to be accorded the respect Jesus himself proscribed.
If we’re looking to the Pauline epistles for further clarification there are any number of passages devoted to conduct during worship services, behaviour of Elders and Deacons and other matters. Paul understood that while we no longer need the Temple in Jerusalem to worship, we will inevitably have established congregations.
It seems mere religious legalism to imply that church volunteers working a charity yardsale netting approximately $500 to $600 bucks are in any way comparable to “the den of theives” as Christ called the money changers.
It may seem that way, but there was a reason. Jesus didn’t want the house of prayer–which is holy and set apart for worship–to become enmeshed in worldly things.
Things like being forced to collect taxes for the government.
“But as long as there are church buildings set apart for worship, then those buildings are to be accorded the respect Jesus himself proscribed. “
Is the parking lot as holy as the sanctuary? It’s church property, but it is hardly “a place for worship.” Is the back yard? I can remember having church picnics on the backyard, but not in the sanctuary. How about the gym if they had one?
Is playing dodgeball in a church gym the same as playing dodgeball in the sanctuary?
If the church had placed the yard sale at the residence of a congregant, would it be any less a church function, and would it be any less enmeshed in worldly thing (owing 30 bucks) as if held on church property?
And does a church yard sale become “not sinful” if they claim in name that it is Congregant A’s yard sale though it is a de facto church yardsale?
And now we’re back to moral legalism.
But I do know that (and I’m paraphrasing) “If two or more of you are gathered in My Name, then I am also there,” and if those engaged in that yard sale were there for right purposes and sharing Christian brotherhood with each other, then Christ was there, and he was pleased.